1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a performance control system, a performance control apparatus, a performance control method, a program for implementing the method, and a storage medium storing the program. In particular, the present invention relates to a performance control apparatus that handles performance information including sounding instruction information and time information for defining sounding timing, as well as a program for implementing the method and a storage medium storing the program.
Also, the present invention particularly relates to a performance control system and a performance control method that reproduce serial information such as video data and performance information corresponding thereto in synchronism with each other as time passes, as well as a program for implementing the method, and a storage medium storing the program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a performance control apparatus such as a reproducing/recording apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-208169 has been known which is constructed such that image information and the corresponding performance information based on teacher's performance, which are recorded in recording media, are reproduced in synchronism with each other, for the purpose of practice for playing a musical instrument such as a piano, so that a user as a student can play a player piano or the like, while watching an image being reproduced and displayed and/or listening to reproduced tones of the performance information, and performance information (data conforming to MIDI (Musical Instruments Digital Interface) standards) corresponding to the user's performance can be recorded in a desired storage medium.
However, according to the performance control apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-208169 mentioned above, assuming that performance carried out by a student watching an image is recorded as performance information such as MIDI data, he/she usually does not play even at the leading end or in the middle of the image during narration such as a teacher's comment, although the performance information is being recorded. Thus, no sounding instruction information (sounding event) is recorded over a long period of time, and consequently, performance information that is recorded has a long “sounding blank time period” for which no tones are sounded.
In the case where the recorded performance information is reproduced, for example, independently of an image, no tones are sounded in the sounding blank time period, and hence there is a long time of silence. As a result, it is impossible to know whether or not performance information is being reproduced, and it takes a long time to reproduce one piece of performance information to the end even though the net performance time is short, which is very inconvenient.
Also, a synchronous performance control system for a karaoke machine, etc. as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. H10-74092 has been conventionally known which reproduces performance data and image data in synchronism with each other. In this system, musical composition data and time-series image sequence data are stored in association with each other, and their relationship is managed by way of an index file. When musical composition data is reproduced, images are displayed in accordance with image sequence data associated with the musical composition data.
In the system disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. H10-74092 mentioned above, the management is easy to carry out because only one piece of musical composition data is associated with an image to be displayed, but for example, in the case where a plurality of pieces of performance information are associated with serial information such as video data to be reproduced as time passes, and the performance information changes as time passes, the management is difficult to carry out. Also, in the case where reproduction of the serial information mentioned above is started in the middle, it is difficult to synchronize the serial information and performance information by starting reproducing the performance information at the corresponding position in the middle.